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Job opportunity advice

cambei

Hi guys,

I'm looking for some advice and general oppinions on a possible job opportuinity.

I currently work on the first line team for an ISP - all day on the phones dealling mostly with resdential customers in the areas of xDSL, hosting, email, VoIP and now leased lines for businesses (the diagnostics are extremely simple). We are currently VERY understaffed and are recruiting new people, as a result they are reluctant to let 1st liners leave - reducing the amount of internal opportunities.

Now I have just been for an interview with a company for a "1st line engineer" role. It would not involve being on the phones all day, would have a lot of exposure to cisco kit (pre-configuring CPE and troubleshooting issues), a lot of help in progressing down the Cisco certification track, much more technical involvement and it is a small company. Also the pay is a lot higher, although this is not very important to me at the moment, as I can survive on my current salary and the main thing I want is to learn and get experience. Oh and it will also take half the time to get to this new place as it is so much closer (currently spend between 50-100 mins to get to work depending on traffic).

Now this may sound like a no-brainer, but I am young (early twenties) and have worked for 2 companies so far. I have only worked in this current job for 10 months. I really want to know if you think it is best to stick in the current company where I will be doing the basic helpdesk work for at least a year more before anything remotely as interesting as this new job opens up. Or should I take the opportunity with the new company, if they offer it and worry about having a longer period with them?

Thanks.

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Comments

sprkymrk

Take the offer, hands-down, and don't look back. Ten months looks like a year on a resume, and that doesn't come up as a negative unless you have several sub 1-year jobs in a row. Anything you might lose by not staying on at your current job will more than be made up for in the experience you'll gain at the new job. Oh yeah, there's also the money and less drive time benefits.

Make sure you give your current employer 2 weeks notice.

Netstudent

I'm in the same boat. I haven't been offered anything yet but I am currently employed and been here for a year. I'm at a plateau as far as attaining skills. Looking for something a little more dynamic on the networking side.

JohnDouglas

Take the job.

Or write a list of the pros/cons of taking the job. Then take the job.

Aquabat [banned]

i was ins the same boat man. take the job, trust me.

o, when you say cpe troubleshooting, what do you mean. do you own the equipment?? Is this new company also a service provider? When you say cpe would you be troubleshooting other peoples equipemnt or your own

shednik

Aquabat wrote:

i was ins the same boat man. take the job, trust me.

o, when you say cpe troubleshooting, what do you mean. do you own the equipment?? Is this new company also a service provider? When you say cpe would you be troubleshooting other peoples equipemnt or your own

yea i agree with ya bry...now that i do your job and jason's since you both left it sucks...but hey i may have an interview with bayer coming up

need to get that ccna they're big in cisco

networker050184

If you like the company you work at now let them know about the new offer and why you want to go. Tell them you would like to stay with the company but would also like to advance your career. They may just one up the offer. Worst thing that could happen is they could say ok see ya, but you already have a new position anyway. If you don't enjoy where you work now, then yes it is a no brainer. If you want to move up in your career with Cisco technologies you need to get your hands dirty with the real stuff. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

cambei

Thanks for the input guys.

The new job does sound a lot more interesting - lets hope they offer it to me!!!

It is a service provider again, which I am happy about, as there is scope to play with BGP down the line! I find SP much more interesting than the corporate side at the moment (but this may change as I have limited exposure).

It would involve pre-configuring cpe for customers, and then remotely troubleshooting them once they have been deployed. I was also told that I would be getting experience on the core equipment too - specific model they mentioned was a 7500. This company specialise in business solutions, like MPLS VPNs, VoIP, broadband connectivity and also linux hosting options (managed and colo) which would be interesting as I enjoy Linux system administration a lot too.

Here's to hoping I didn't mess the interview up too much - I went in thinking it was a more basic job than the one I was doing due to some mis-information, so wasn't AS prepared as I would have liked to have been.

LOkrasa

Take it! I agree with everyone else. Dont look back bc you never know when these opportunities are gonna come around...

Aquabat [banned]

cisco systems man, gotta get that exp.

o, also thinking about the Nortel Certified Technology Specialist. It seems like a cool splace to start in the telecom world.

cambei

Had to apply for this job via a recruitment agency and they just called me to say the feedback was very positive and they should have a decision by tomorrow. Eek. Hope I get it.

kafifi13

I might be late but take the job. I was in teh same situation. I worked for a telecom company. T1's MPLS, VOIP. everything is outsourced though so there isn't much technical work. I was in managment. I managed the help desk basically. They were going to become there own voip switch and have a noc down the road. They said i would probably be in line for it.

word of advice...if it's not in writing then don't believe anythign. I took a entry level job as a network engineer and Love it. Now i'm finding out that my old company who worked for 5 years is also goign to outsource voip.

You taking that new job is a no brainer.

cambei

Well I got the job, so good stuff there.

However, I am rapidly hearing negative things about this comapny and their practices. I;m looking into it, but it doesn't seem like it is all that it's cracked up to be.

If there is anyone in the UK who knows a fair bit about providers, maybe they could let me know so I could PM them about it.

It seems that they lie, **** and steal (maybe) there way through the industry and they don't appear to subscribe to any regulating bodies codes of conducts.

On the other hand, the company I currently work for, which I would say is very reputable and honest, is advertising a position internally which would be interesting.

I don't like being an adult

kafifi13

I worked for a telecomm comany here in the US before taking this networking position. They all lie **** and do illegal stuff. I was in managment so i saw the in's and outs.

geezer

Don't worry about the job, it will take some time to adjust. I took a little while going from my last NOC job to current production environment position but hang in there, try to look for the positives no matter how small they may seem, and take one day at a time - rome and all that....

What service provider - not talk talk?

chmod

Just take the job to gain knowledge. Don't even worry about the practices just focus in the knowledge and experience.